Fredk, many thanks for the retrospectacle of early views of Solander, love seeing those..nice look back sol3752 (perhaps this view even includes the spot where that photo was taken) and below in xeye, movin' on up!

The plan is to inspect the rocks that have come down the scree slope where we are now. After that there's a nice proposed route map taking us along the south side of Wdowiak to Ulysses crater and then on to Marathon valley.

QUOTE

We have two options: (1) take our time and pull into Marathon Valley just before winter shuts everything down, or (2) make rapid progress and arrive at Marathon Valley early enough in the season that we can do some sight-seeing before weather shuts things down.

Anyone have any information on the Marathon valley contours? I guess that they cannot assume that Marathon Valley and approaches will have the same superb cleaning environment as was the case last winter and Opportunity could well have a stationary mid winter sojourn as was the case on Cape York. Plan for the worst case and be pleasantly surprised if things are better. Couldn't agree more with respect to Larry Crumpler's blog.

The winter at CY was the only one out of six Oppy needed to hunker down, so even without the intense gusts we've had this winter there's good reason to be optimistic for next winter. But of course they must plan for the possibility.

Finally some new images - here's our first real closeup of the rock face in front of us:

Nice stitch, i've been waiting YEARS to see a view like this with an intervening mountain lower than the horizon. but thought we'd have to be higher up Cape Tribulation, pleasant surprise!would be great to get a super-res of this overlaid with map tracks and SOLs all the way back to the location of Crumplers traverse map Cape York vanatage point.

IMAGE COPYRIGHT
Images posted on UnmannedSpaceflight.com may be copyrighted.
Do not reproduce without permission. Read
here for further information on space images and copyright.

OPINIONS AND MODERATION
Opinions expressed on UnmannedSpaceflight.com are those of the
individual posters and do not necessarily reflect the opinions
of UnmannedSpaceflight.com or The Planetary Society. The all-volunteer
UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderation team is wholly independent
of The Planetary Society. The Planetary Society has no influence
over decisions made by the UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderators.

SUPPORT THE FORUM
Unmannedspaceflight.com is a project of the Planetary Society
and is funded by donations from visitors and members. Help keep
this forum up and running by contributing
here.